If you're like me, you were probably a little perplexed by the announcement of the new Visual Studio and .NET platforms. My immediate reaction was, "Oh, no-not another set of tools to learn." Don't get me wrong. I embraced Visual Studio .NET and, like most of you, I looked forward to the stability of Visual Studio 2003 and version 1.1 of the .NET Framework. And, probably like you, I was comfortable. A comfortable developer is a productive developer. So I put off reading about the new tools as long as possible because I figured that I would have to do nothing more than find all my usual tasks hidden on new toolbars and menus.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Visual Studio 2005 is more than just the next version of Visual Studio to use with the next version of the .NET Framework. Visual Studio 2005 is Microsoft's first attempt to position Visual Studio as a tool you can use for the upstream and downstream development activities that sandwich actual code writing. For example, you can use Visual Studio to visually model the entities you want to create in code. Unlike other modeling tools that have only a one-way relationship between the model and the code generation, your code stays synchronized with the model.
To be sure, Visual Studio still excels when it comes to writing code-whether you're writing it yourself or using one of Visual Studio designers to generate code for you. As with the designers in previous versions of Visual Studio, you drag and drop icons from a toolbox onto a design surface. Visual Studio generates the code for you in the background. You can then get up and running in using the new Visual Studio designers and code-generation features by simply reusing what you already know from using previous versions of Visual Studio.
If you're new to Visual Studio, you're getting to the party just in time. Whether you need to write mountains of custom code or create a simple application, Visual Studio 2005 can get the job done. Furthermore, Visual Studio supports the latest approaches to software development, including object-oriented design and programming, componentized applications, and model-driven development.
Visual Studio 2005 provides a dizzying array of editors, controls, designers, and supporting tools for developing software. Getting mired in the details of using these tools is a productivity killer. This book uses plain English to show you how to use Visual Studio 2005 to get busy building software while ignoring unnecessary details. Use this book to focus on the work that pays the bills and to
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Improve your individual efficiency and productivity as a developer.
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Display proficiency in selecting the right Visual Studio 2005 tools required to develop a solution.
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Employ Visual Studio 2005 to guide and improve your individual software development practices or those of a team.
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Navigate the many project types, editors, and designers in Visual Studio 2005.
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Increase your confidence and professionalism in using the development environment of choice for developers of solutions based on the Microsoft platform.
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Determine the role of Visual Studio in your software development process, whether you're working solo or on a team of 20.
About the Author
Vanessa L. Williams is a consultant and author specializing in Microsoft’s SharePoint and .NET technologies. Through her Midwest consulting business, Vanessa Williams Business Solutions, she provides custom development, systems implementation, hosting, and training services for SharePoint, .NET, and Visual Studio Team System. She has ten years of business information systems experience spanning several industries including transportation, petroleum marketing, manufacturing, retail, and motor-sports entertainment. Her nontechnical experience — including jobs as a shipping clerk, accounting clerk, and forklift driver — gives her the unique ability to view systems implementations from an end user’s perspective.
Vanessa grew up in Indianapolis, where she graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and Computer Information Systems.
Vanessa is active in the online tech community. She welcomes comments, feedback, and questions via her Web site, sharepointgrrl.com.
